Congrats on the new bike, and an air ride? Smooooth

Today I got 45 km before I had to warm up the fingers. Why did I not get back on 12 or 13 years ago?
All week is supposed to be nice, too bad about the work thing. Long weekend this weekend YIPPEE!

Well there's snow on the ground but I'm going to pick up the brakes for the Suzuki, give her an oil change and get it all ready to go. Supposed to hit the +'s this aft, so maybe if the snow clears off, I'll head out for a quick rip

You guys still have snow?
It's pretty darn sparse here right now (knocking on wood). Today is cloudy and overcast, I still want to ride but the cages are aggressive this afternoon.
Must be the long weekend.

Happy Easter.

There was a bit on the ground this morning but it melted by mid-afternoon.

I got the brakes done and everything else and went for a rip for about 45 minutes and it was goooooood.

Right on, didn't take you long.

I know front pads would be easy, cars, bikes, they are all 2 or 3 bolts.
How were the drum brakes to do?
I am going to buy some after market pads, the stockers make a horrible racket. I go to a Delphi web site that has all the specs and how-tos for this bike and apparently it's the norm to just change em out.

Which leads into my next question. Is there a mail order place you guys use for tougher to get parts? I don't want to order from the states.

Daniel_r wrote:

QUOTE:
Right on, didn't take you long.

Takes about an hour and a half to take out the rear wheel, take apart the hub, clean it out and put the new brakes back in, and reinstall.

Daniel_r wrote:

QUOTE:
I know front pads would be easy, cars, bikes, they are all 2 or 3 bolts.
How were the drum brakes to do?

This is the first drums I've swapped out (on anything, never done them on a car either) and it was easy peasy.

Daniel_r wrote:

QUOTE:
Is there a mail order place you guys use for tougher to get parts? I don't want to order from the states.

I bought these in town (Regina Motorcycle Salvage) for $35. I don't think I would've saved much buying online and I'd personally rather support the locals. In Canada though, there are few good online Canadian Parts/Accessory websites. Here are a few decent ones though (a couple of them in Canada or at least Canada friendly:

• www.cruisercustomizing.com has free shipping to Canada.
• www.baysideperformance.com
• www.newenough.com
• www.denniskirk.com
• www.kneedraggers.com
• www.chaparral-racing.com

That's a great point "shop local", and a great reminder to give the local companies a crack at me before I go elsewhere.
I realize once you factor in shipping etc that the price will likely be more... unless you can't get it local.
Tis considered bad form to shop locally owned bikes also.

Few riders on the road here still, I have seen 2 others. One rode a sport bike and when I waved it looked like he was trying to decide what I was (no return wave), and the guy driving the vulcan wanted to know if I would share his funny quirly looking cigarette with him.

Well, gotta hit the road it's +1 almost

It's gone from plus 4 at 8am to now -1 by the weather network and snowing darn it. But so be it.
I've put a few hundred km on the bike so I may as well change the oil. The previous owner changed it when he stored it for the winter, but I'll feel better if I change it again.
Got a filter from Napa (part #PS4936 for a v star 650 and it comes with the "O"-ring for $6.97 plus 0.50 enviro charge).
From experience I would put Napa parts against OEM for anything, they do make good parts.
The old owner was nice enough to give me 4l of penzoil 10w-40 for small engines so I'll use that for this change, but for the next I'll use a partial synthetic.
Full synthetic is ungawdly expensive but is really worth the cost after a few thousand break-in miles.

I have been having the front brakes chattering and making scraping sounds so I'll take em off and bevel the leading and trailing edges, add some brake quiet and see what comes of it. If that doesn't work I guess I'll buy some EBC pads. I should just bite the bullet and buy a steel braided brake line, but I think it would look cocked unless you got the others in stainless too. Be about 300 tax in for all 4 I bet.

Well, time to get back to work before I have to fire myself.

Usually what I do is change the oil and filter before I park it for the winter. Then in the spring, I run it for 10 minutes to warm it up good & I change the oil again (but not the filter).

Over the 5-6 months sitting there over the winter, the oil loses some of it's protective value from the chemicals and crap (from the combustion process) sitting in the crankcase. That's why they say change your oil every XXXX kms or 3 months, whichever comes first.

I know most people don't do that, but I figure the extra $20 (since I do it myself) is a good investment and can't hurt.

If he changed the oil and filter before he put it away for the winter I guess I would be surprised.
The oil wasn't very clean when we first got it and the filter looks fairly oldish to me, tough to really tell on the filter tho.

I was reading this http://www.saskma.com/content/view/95/56/ this morning and was kinda chuckling to myself. I have always used car oil for oil changes. 30,000+ km on my Virago and it ran like a top.
Back then Bike oils were more expensive than they are now from what I have seen. I priced it out in 87 at $8 per liter for Yamaha oil and yesterday at 4.49. For dino oil. Could buy the Mobil1 full synthetic for that I believe. I use Quaker State 4x4/SUV partial synthetic in my truck and from now on that's what the bike will be getting too.

I also took the hypercharger apart to check the air filter...

A picture of the filter and a shot to show I am not the neatest guy in the world when changing oil as evinced by the footrest.

Judging by the chrome a cleanup on aisle 3 is in order.

the second pic. 1 at a time I see?

Yes, 1 at a time....waiting for the forum dudes to implement the multiple images per post feature. It's scheduled for the next release....

This am, yuck.